1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display controlling apparatus, a method of controlling image display, and a storage medium, which are capable of displaying image files shared by multiple apparatuses over a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic album systems are used to provide services in which image files of images captured by image pickup apparatuses, such as digital cameras, are registered in electronic albums on Web servers and users can view the registered image files.
Multiple members who have participated in photography events, such as school sports festivals, can use the services provided by the electronic album systems to share the same electronic album and to view the images registered in the electronic album. In such cases, the electronic albums of the images captured in the photography events are created and the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) of the electronic albums are shared by the participants of the photography events. In addition, user identifiers (IDs) and passwords used for permitting the viewing of the electronic albums are given to specified persons in order to prevent the general public from accessing and viewing the electronic albums. In the electronic album systems, it is necessary to perform operations for temporarily storing the images captured by the digital cameras in computers, selecting images to be registered from the stored images, and registering the selected images in the electronic albums on Web servers.
Electronic album creating apparatuses are provided to capture images photographed by multiple digital cameras to which specific identification information is applied and to automatically create electronic albums of the captured images. In such cases, the specific identification information is given to each digital camera and the identification information about each digital camera is added to the images photographed by the digital camera. The digital cameras are rented to the participants of school events, for example, sports festivals. The images photographed by the digital cameras are transmitted from the digital camera to the electronic album creating apparatuses. The electronic album creating apparatuses extract images to which the same identification information is added based on the identification information about the digital cameras, added to the transmitted image data. The extracted images having the same identification information added thereto are registered in the same electronic album. The electronic album including the images photographed by the digital cameras rented to the participants is created in the above manner.
In transmission of images between electronic albums, image transmission systems are provided to automatically transmit images desired by owners of destination electronic albums to which the images are to be transmitted. Such systems, first, extract feature information concerning subjects included in the images in the destination electronic albums. Next, the systems select images including subjects having levels of similarity higher than a reference value with the subjects included in the images stored in the destination electronic albums from the images in the destination electronic albums based on the extracted feature information. Then, the systems automatically transmit the selected images to the destination electronic albums.
In the electronic album systems described above, for example, if private albums are created in advance and the created private albums are registered in public albums on Web servers, it is possible for members participating in the systems to view the private albums registered in the public albums.
However, the members can also view images that are included in the private albums registered in the public albums and that are not concerned with the members.
For example, it is presumed that Mr. A, who is a parent of children in the 3rd grade and the 5th grade of an elementary school, uses one digital camera to photograph the children of the 3rd grade and the 5th grade participating in the sports festival in the elementary school and creates a private album including the captured images. It is also presumed that, in order to allow the private album to be shared, the private album is registered in a public album titled “Ms. Adam's class—the 3rd grade” and in a public album titled “Mr. James's class—the 5th grade” created in a Web server.
In the above case, images of the children in the 5th grade, which are not concerned with the members of the public album titled “Ms. Adam's class—the 3rd grade”, are registered in the public album “Ms. Adam's class—the 3rd grade”. Similarly, images of the children in the 3rd grade, which are not concerned with the members of the public album titled “Mr. James's class—5th grade”, are registered in the public album titled “Mr. James's class—5th grade”.
It is not desirable to register the images that are not concerned with the members viewing the public album. Accordingly, a method can be proposed in which Mr. A creates private albums for the 3rd grade and the 5th grade and registers the private albums in the corresponding public albums. However, it is necessary to troublesomely perform an operation for sorting the multiple captured images by the private albums.